Nice method for quickly cutting through the numbers when the raid is waiting for your roll. Of course it helps if you have put in some pre-thought as well.

Love it… will keep reading it!

Not only does the stamina help us, but we don’t benefit from parry, block, etc, the way other tanks do. So going for uncrittable and high health is the only way for us to go (and dodge rating. Nummy nummy dodge rating).

Unfortunately, Karazhan seems to believe that all leather armor drops are for kitties or healers or boomkin, but bear tanks are s.o.l. I’ve been tanking in my Heavy Clefthoof armor for a while now. There are upgrades you can buy through badges and a few you can find in heroics and I definately agree that as a bear tank, even if you’re PvPing for some gear pieces, you NEED to run heroics as a tank to figure out how to tank.

(Also because PvPing as a resto/balance druid with the rep purchasable gear is much more fun and honor efficient than trying to PvP as a bear tank. I tried it once with my bear tank as a bear… and while I couldn’t kill anything, dear lord … they couldn’t kill me, either. O.o Well, they could, but it took them a while.)

Also, unless I’m missing something, the Merciless Gladiator Dragonhide Shoulders (the season 2? whatever season just became available for BG honor/tokens) is the only upgrade that you can really find, outside of trying to see if Heroic Kelidan the Breaker will drop a set of shoulders that just isn’t nearly as good.

… okay, I’ll stop hijacking your comments page and let you continue to discuss the very valid point that except for this ONE instance (gotta love exceptions to rules!) … yeah, PvP does not make a PvE raider.

I agree also that some stamina gear can help in some PvE encounters, but this article was intended more for the person who’s wearing pvp gear to every encounter of every raid. Once you start talking gear swapping for particular encounters, you already demonstrate understanding of what I’m trying to get across. :)

@Feltia:
Experiences like your Mechanar/S1 rogue are why I wrote the article. :)

I noted the tank exclusion in the previous article, which I’ve linked to more clearly, thanks for the heads up. You’re absolutely right that a number of classes benefit strongly from going for pvp weapons. I’ll post a followup.

One big caveat is, though, for a Paladin tanking weapon. Aside from the Merciless Glad. Gavel (which all around has pretty darn nice stats for a Pally tank), the only options beyond the “Continuum” level come from T5+ content.

Too bad PvP as a tank is just plain painful.

Two followup comments.

1: Warlocks value STA more than other DPS classes because they can turn it into mana. In those cases, item budget spent on STA is not wasted. That said, Warlock gear already is STA-heavy, and my Warlock has never worn a PvP piece. My Healadin has, however, due to my second point.

2: Some raid (and even instance) fights require all raid members to be able to handle X damage, and having PvP (or other STA-heavy) gear available to swap into for those fights will be beneficial. Eve 500 extra health on a healer can be the difference between a wipe and a recovery in those fights.